There's a very, very interesting interview with David available on davidsylvian.it- on their home page. It is in Italian, so if anyone has the patience to translate it properly, that'd be great!

I've tried GoogleTranslate on it and the result isn't bad at all (see below).

There are some very moving comments about Mick and his illness - the translation is clearly not 100% accurate but I think it gets the gist of David's sentiments. I don't think I've seen him comment until now. I hope no one is offended by my using clumsy electronic translation for something this personal.

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Christian: First, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to make this virtual chat with you. So you do not love to go back to the past but follow me for a moment, what I believe to be your starting point: Ghosts. I met with Japan Tin Drum (amazing) but I met through David Sylvian Ghosts. That song hit me straight to the heart, making me understand that the form of a boy from the cover, too good and too blond, was about to give way to a living creature, that was beginning to take its first steps into himself. This is what I experienced as a listener, but how did you feel while you were writing that piece? What happens inside of you?

David Sylvian: I think that many things were starting to rise to the surface during the period in which it was written Ghosts. At one level, I was trying to redirect the orientation of the band, to move away from past trends and clichés to move towards something more individually identifiable as the sound of a band evolving, maturing, which found its point of balance in the immediate future. I wanted to work with arrangements by nature more abstract, because I found them extraordinarily liberating, or anything that really rifinisse the arrangements of songs, digging further electronics etc. Polaroids was written relatively soon after the completion of Quiet Life, and for this, plus an extension of that album was a real evolution. Whatever came after, was to redefine the band in some way. I think this has already been well documented elsewhere. To speak more generally of the period, I think it's fair to say that the cracks had started to show between me and the four remaining members of the band. Or perhaps, though I was the engine behind the group, I felt more and more a lack of personal harmony within it, the resentment seems to appear everywhere. We had started to enjoy success and I felt it hit everyone differently, somehow. For my part, did not like the outward signs that he brought with him and that would have attracted more press and media to what was recommended at that time. I also had an aversion to the tour, which was in conflict with anyone involved with the band. Thus, there was a growing awareness on my part that something had to give up, I had to figure out what I could receive and what I was forced to delete. I spent more time alone, withdrawing, trying to find answers in what can be described as a relatively hostile environment. The management of this period was extremely manipulative and saw, quite reasonably in terms of business, the opportunity for a financial return, but after years of investment, whereas before I had been led to believe that my ambitions and goals were the same management, I began to think otherwise. For the first time I was independent, both by the same group that pressure from the hierarchy of management, who used to drive me to the band etc.. All very strange to regard him now, but we were quite young when we started and the heavy hand of management intervened quite early in our development and we were only too grateful for his presence, but over time I began to feel the need to avoid the constant conspiratorial whisper in my ears, the attractive suggestions, the subtle suggestions designed to create doubt in the trial staff, and just follow my instincts. So Ghosts was born in this environment. Just when things had become, in theory, easier, in many ways, I was tormented by doubts about where I was heading, both personally and professionally. I wanted to wrest control of the puppeteer and act like myself, engaging in what they felt passion and delete items "attractive." Although he spoke of outside influences that have worked during the period when the band was together, I take full responsibility for my actions, failures and successes. I am certainly not trying to make a buck. I might want to grow up in an environment less hostile, less manipulative and exploitative, but it had been given that and, looking back, though obviously many have objected to the way in which the band was managed, management believed that enough me to invest time and money in difficult years. I must be grateful. I'm not sure how it would appear a different result.

C: Back to more recent times. With Dead Bees have expressed a moment of joy in your life, you have given the idea of a perfect building in which, however, some cracks already was opening; Blemish with the building collapsed, but even in pain and despair, hovered a little bit of hope; Manafon is a dark maze, where there are no reference points, a battle between Eros and Thanatos, Thanatos which seems to have prevailed. Where has the hope? Like a deflated balloon in your photos?

David Sylvian: The hope is there, in the act of creation itself. To this alluded the album, as a whole. The images of Ruud allude to that place where lies the creative mind or the basin from which she draws. It is a work that looks closely at the death, desire, fear not. Waiver of an attachment to this world and recognizes the potential vacuum that follows death. This is all very liberating in many respects, but much depends on your personal cosmology. It is also a depiction of the troubled mind. In other areas we seem ready to accept and, if possible, embrace the darkness but works created in popular music is a case less likely. One is reminded of Berlin, Lou Reed and a number of other exceptions. As a movie, we work by Bergman, Von Trier's Antichrist also has more than a casual resemblance, in some respects, with the psychological and emotional distress that caused Manafon. There is no question of offering conclusions, ordered responses, in this kind of work is the quality and intensity of the wonder that is important. That said, I imagine the average listener to put on Manafon randomly or repeatedly. It has a power and a power might not fit at all hours of the day or night but is available for a heart / mind that is in a particular state of need or receptivity.

C: The first listen Manafon me upset. I felt overwhelmed by a sense of death and loss, a mix of emotions too strong to bear. For the plays that followed, I had to try to remain more detached, for the first time since I follow your work. It was a desired effect, or simply took one of my particular state of mind?

David Sylvian: If you find yourself working too hard to bear and all, in life, we ran into this kind of work, you may not always feel so against it but at least it openly declares its power. When I compare myself with work that is repugnant to me, confuse me or scare me, I have to repeat the experience again and again, until they accept the job. The fear and confusion exists in me and I would like to eradicate it, observe it closely under a merciless light. They are attracted to this kind of work and much less than those who openly make me feel at ease / comfort. This is perhaps due to the fact that we are saturated by the media, music in particular, that for most of us washes off a significant impact without making a transformation of some kind. In film, theater, literature, could be slightly less lenient towards this trend. The music seems on the whole need it but there is room for other approaches and the applications around there are a lot of examples which highlight the fact. I'd also like to point out something that only a few isolated voices have made it known that there is a dark humor at play in some of the lyrics. Some of the characters portrayed in themselves, in a tragicomic element while recognizing the reality of their own suffering. Despite all our virtues, we are weak, vain and fallible.

C: Your way of writing has changed over time is drier, more direct, but perhaps more effective and of great emotional impact. I've always thought your writings as poetry, rather than simple text, and I now have a whole new power. Certainly depends on many factors, but would you talk a bit '?

David Sylvian: If you have more power, may be due as much to the writing process to maturity. I'm not sure have a lot more to say on the subject, simply do their best with what you have available at any given time. It seems to behave in the same way about these things but with a slightly reduced attention span, maybe. The commitment to complete a piece at a time, writing and recording, is necessary both because of changes in personal habits, and to maintain the process itself fresh and alive. If you're lucky, the eloquence accompanies maturity.

C: What are the foxes, which so often recur in texts and time Manafon Five Lines?

David Sylvian: They represent different things depending on context. In Five Lines represent themselves and the forces, elements savagely devouring of nature.

C: In the song Sleepwalkers is a picture that really struck me: ... on the ladder of my thorns. It's your metaphor or a clear reference to Masonic philosophy?

David Sylvian: I do not like to be called to decode my writings. Analyzing the one hand, unquestionably make my intentions is a bit one-dimensional 'how to describe someone you know well with a single word. Justice can not be done (madam). However, in this case will answer, hoping to avoid any similar question later. It was not implied any reference to the Freemasons.

C: The film Amplified Gestures I have been very helpful to understand the musicality of Manafon. The enthusiasm shown by these musicians, especially older ones, playing with the music and instruments has allowed me to give body and the musicality organicità.a fragmented. Was this your intent? Help us look from another point of view?

David Sylvian: I anticipated that there might be some curiosity on the part of listeners, who approached Manafon, about his pedigree, the background of free improvisation, total commitment to this approach / philosophy, which governs both life and the work of many of its professionals. I wanted to produce a film that could serve as an introduction, from primer to present those with whom I worked, which represent some of the best in the field. Once you understand at what level, these individuals are dedicated to this type of engagement with the basic principles of free improvisation, as they see them and interpret them, you can not, through ignorance, arrogance or whatever, dismiss the result on two feet . These musicians are extremely talented, intelligent, who have chosen the road less traveled, and if you grant to surrender to what is offered you, you can experience that before you would not have thought possible, especially if your diet has excluded listening improvisation until then. I personally opened my mind in the '80s, when I heard for the first time many of these musicians. In addition to the above considerations, I felt that many of the musicians were shamefully poorly documented. Despite having worked in this field for decades, it is still hard to find movies that speak to them about the philosophy behind their approach, its history, and how to permeate other aspects of their lives etc.. Wide-ranging exploration of the musicians in this area deserves to be made. This is the best that I was able to offer in this momento.Non you need to know nothing of this background to get something to Manafon, which eventually falls entirely different category of music, perhaps one of its own, but the film is available, should you wish to further explore this particular road (the DVD will be released next year to AG).

C: Sleepwalkers ... let's start from the cover. What impressed you Kristamas Klousch visual art, so much to choose it for the artwork?

David Sylvian: It was Burrough or one of its characters who said something like "I devour images ...? I feel that with the advent of the Internet is increasingly the case. I "devour" a lot of images, in order to build a library for projects to realize Samadhisound. Putting together audio and artwork was a purely enjoyable part of my work with the label. When was the turn of Sleepwalkers, the fact that it was a compilation, I had a clear image in mind for its public face, so to speak. First time I had crossed Kristamas work but I had made a connection between this intuitive el'abum I was putting together, but over time, what later became the cover intrigued me and I decided to use that. It seemed to bring together a multiplicity of possible readings, some of which are in direct conflict with each other. As a set of images seemed to reflect, in some form, concerns the text of the title track, which can be seen as an attack of some kind ... or the narrator himself or others. Victim and / or guilty ... probably both. A private sensuality, a possible moral perversity, a deeper level of suffering, a corruption of, or a fortress for the protection of innocence. As I said, a multiplicity of readings that resonate between image and sound.

Antonio: Often artists make a gift, representing them to the public with a compilation. Very often, this gift seems to be born more by the need to make a tribute to themselves and their own finances and the need to refresh a share. It happens when the compilation is nothing but a sequence of some successes, such as whether the public should be given only one dimension of time and space: buy yourself this, leave the archives of memory and the shelves by the superfluous ... I, in return, you I too will pay homage to an original and a variant of some warbling. Very often but not always. Sleepwalkers is over, who makes the gift is over, and the recipient is forced to admit that sometimes you can really amaze even something you already knew. In listening, in addition to the sounds all'annuire rules known as acquired and perhaps reduced to pleasing habits, something new arises, a new desire, a desire to regenerate the first to recur later. This is the gift, cerebral stimulant. Authentic, as new for everyone. There is the presence of an honest summary, selected with the canons of honesty that goes beyond the artist himself, though not apart from itself. This is not a question but my mind, moved by the surprise of this compilation. Let me know what do you think the overall result was that the assembly of Sleepwalkers with their touches to the tracks. And why did you choose this playlist? / (C: I agree with Antonio, but I find Ballad Of A Dead Man is a bit 'out of the choir)

David Sylvian: I'm obviously pleased with the result. I was happy, if not occasionally surprised, that the material that came from so many sources, was comfortable with (if I had listened to the exceptions made by everyone, including me, simply would not be nothing left to fill. What mostly stands up well and what they charge). There were one or two exceptions, where a piece seemed out of context, but the reason was, in general, related to the nature of the mix or sound recording, rather than the composition itself. In this respect, Pure Genius is the first that comes to mind. Remixed the song helped him feel easier in his new environment. Listen to songs in an alternate context can make us hear from scratch, perhaps enabling us to understand for the first time. It is the re-contextualization of the songs, gather them together under one roof, which is a nice piece of putting together things like that. Fill in as varied a selection fits well with the zeitgeist, the philosophy of Pick'n mix, for which you choose to download songs from various sources to make their own compilations. To my regret, there is much less emphasis on the album as a single entity, a work in one body.

C: Angels is beautiful, I was fascinated, it seems the story of a vision or a dream ... is it?

David Sylvian: Initially I was given a text by Erik Honoré, to work on. I took one or two images from that text and then I left to go to my interpretation. The piece is like a fever dream, the possible possession of a non-believer, an imbalance.

Antonio: Five Lines is an excellent unpublished content Sleepwalkers. E 'anticipation of revisiting Manafon? Want to tell us something about the new work with Dai Fujikura?

David Sylvian: I think Five Lines, in a sense, give indications of the work to be done on Manafon. From working with is really the beginning. We are testing the ground in a variety of different contexts to prepare to welcome a larger work. The more we work on these details, whether it be a piece like Five Lines or treating a song as a Small Metal Gods, most to better define the work to come. In a sense, we must narrow the scope, limit the possibilities and discover the structure for the project, before giving him a purpose. I have not had such an experience with other collaborators, but coming from such different fields, it is important to know, and with great clarity that we are speaking the same language. Yes, indeed we are learning how to understand and interpret the mutual vocabulary.

C: I had heard only Sugarfuel live, I'll be honest, I never liked it. This version however is fantastic. There are other songs that you've performed live and then you have never registered, and I refer to those of Slowfire Tour Honestly, I'm a bit 'bland, although it captures the potential ... you never came the desire to rearrange them and give their personalities?

David Sylvian: I have little memory for these things but the only original composition, not registered, remember that you have performed in the Slow Fire tour was "I do nothing." I recorded a version of this song during the recording of "Dead Bees" but at that moment, I was very interested in understanding it. Not that I did not like the song, I liked it, but once something has been performed live, simply lose an important personal connection with the piece. It is as if, outside the context of live, no longer belonged to me. I have no problem with the pieces that fade into oblivion, live, so to speak, thanks to a brief spell. My regret is that he is not allowed to disappear, given the number of bootlegs that run.

C: To a series of events very random, I have translated the Book of Mick Karn, Japan and Self Existence. It is quite interesting and amusing, he tells the adventures of the band, tells himself and his weaknesses with remarkable honesty and also tells a lot about you (so a little critical!). I do not think you did read it but, if so, what do you think? We've all heard the wonderful A Certain Slant of Light, what do you feel for him at this time sickness and trouble?

David Sylvian: There is much that could and perhaps should be said about this but now it seems the least suitable, so cut it short. As for Mick's disease, I suffer a lot to him. We are not closer, but there are people in life that you are in contact for a reason. We conducted karmic obligations, one's lives. In that sense, he's family and the relationship no doubt continue to grow. His illness was long and included a significant pain, the kind who do not wish it on anyone. I wish him peace, something that seems to have known very little in all the years in which I attended. Peace and a refuge from the inner demons that plagued him throughout his life. If I could, embraced him and reminded him how much I always loved and in that moment, perhaps only for the duration of the embrace, understand that it is true.

Antonio: Years ago I was in Amsterdam and decided to spend the evening behind the glass window on the fourth floor of my rented apartment. Throughout the evening, sitting on the couch and lights off, I watched the old palace in the face and noticed that none of the residential flats had curtains on the windows. Scanned for a few hours what took place in quell'alveare micro worlds, and there was the cook in perfect solitude, who was reading a book in soft lighting, an earnest couple who dined in absolute silence, a woman who make-up and then open the door to his elegant companion and hug him, and the evolution of all those situations. It seemed a bit 'to witness scenes of the Decalogue Kieslowsky. You wrote songs that were inspired by the irrepressible observation of other people's lives?

David Sylvian: I tend to draw from my life. As I said elsewhere, we multitudes container. Everything is subjective and all that is necessary for insight and illumination lives within us.

Antonio: A personal curiosity: the book that has marked you most in life.

David Sylvian: I can not remember a single book, because there are so many that seem to come at the right time in your journey. I also have little memory for the arguments of the books, especially novels. I swear I could have a library of 30 books and read them periodically, each time as if for the first time, but I remember those who have something that resonates deep within me, the essence of the story remains or even a single scene, which continues to echoing in my life. Even poetry has played an important role in my life as a player and category wise there are many books that have helped me along. Each one just for that moment.

C: We were still a thousand questions, but we understand that you are very busy, so we leave you to your music. We hope that the magic of winter to be your muse.

David's response when asked about Mick is very moving even when you know it is a translation. I teared up this morning reading it. I know what he means. If you could hug somebody they would know what you feel by the length and how hard you hold them...

Blemished wrote:Antonio: Five Lines is an excellent unpublished content Sleepwalkers. E 'anticipation of revisiting Manafon? Want to tell us something about the new work with Dai Fujikura?

David Sylvian: I think Five Lines, in a sense, give indications of the work to be done on Manafon. From working with is really the beginning. We are testing the ground in a variety of different contexts to prepare to welcome a larger work. The more we work on these details, whether it be a piece like Five Lines or treating a song as a Small Metal Gods, most to better define the work to come. In a sense, we must narrow the scope, limit the possibilities and discover the structure for the project, before giving him a purpose. I have not had such an experience with other collaborators, but coming from such different fields, it is important to know, and with great clarity that we are speaking the same language. Yes, indeed we are learning how to understand and interpret the mutual vocabulary.

"We are testing the ground in a variety of different contexts to prepare to welcome a larger work."

That bit about 'a larger work' seems very very promising. A 50+ minute composition would qualify as a welcomed larger work, wouldn't it?

missouriman wrote:David's response when asked about Mick is very moving even when you know it is a translation. I teared up this morning reading it. I know what he means. If you could hug somebody they would know what you feel by the length and how hard you hold them...

That's just how I felt after reading this interview. Thank you so much Blemished and alex for posting it.The words of the great Holgar Czukay always stay with me: "...the more I worked with David, the more I found out I had a real versatile artist as a partner, one with true human character. He is a remarkable artist".

"One with a true human character" - that's why, apart from his music, I love and admire Sylvian so much.

Readers on other forums aren't so forgiving on the MK comments. Its one of those things, damned if you do, damned if you dont. I guess from my point of view it would have been better to keep it clean. David has had his share of demons to deal with as well. It was a nice gesture but maybe its time to pick up the phone or even jump on a plane.

@ScottR I don't think it's for anyone to judge, you don't know whats gone before/current or intended. He remarked that he feels great empathy and love for Mick in answer to a very direct and personal question. Best leave it there.

I hear them breathing They know what I have done, all that I've been through I tell them secrets And who's to say it isn't so?

For goodness sake Scott...Mick is battling a horrible cancer that could kill him. I cannot see the need to start bickering about David and Mick's relationship.

David was asked about Mick's book (which I've read) in which he is heavily criticised - I thought David's response to that was as it should be - clearly there are criticisms that he would regard as unfair, but it is completely beside the point as he says. Events of thirty years ago (when they were young lads ) are hardly important in the context of Mick's suffering.

I thought that David's expression of his love for Mick was very moving. His words ache with affection for an old, estranged friend and that is deeply touching. More than that, who are we to know and who are we to judge? Those guys have added so much to most of our lives through their wonderful music. I just wish them all health and happiness.

Davids reactionto Micks situation was really mature, geniune and caring. Too me it echos broken relations in the past with family/freinds that you were once so close too -that when you do fall out -the pain cannot be spoken of for years and years. Over time you come to the realisation that neither party can be wholly blamed.

David is obviously of the stage where most of the hurt can be buried and he can now appreciate how much they both meant to each other at the time..'family' and how their fates were interlinked for that period in time. I also hope that Mick's book (which I have read) may have helped him move on by getting things 'out there' rightly or wrongly and off his chest.

I hope him and Mick do meet and find some type of closure and healing now that so much water as passed under the bridge . I am sure that is what all Japan fans wish for...xxx Happy 2011

What a lovely and positive message you gave to all of us for the New Year. Thank you so much.Yes, there are already too many negative, hostile feelings in this world - we don't need to add some more.Love to all